"Is Mr. Carver there? Yes! So glad!" and then, after a minute's wait, "Can you send Starlight and the trap up by seven? Seven? Yes! And Mr. Carver, please see that he is hitched up strongly, will you?"
She hung up the receiver. At the foot of the stairs she paused. "You don't mind if I drive along the road and follow them a little if I can, do you?" she asked laughingly.
The professor ran his hand over his perplexed face and picked up his book; he had no answer. At any rate he felt he had had his say about young Lawson and so he must not be too severe about this. He little knew he had given that young man the very clue he needed: for some hour of that night when the stars grew pale and the gay party in Lawson's room was breaking up, one of the men vowed he must have an hour's sleep to steady his nerves for the fox-hunt to-morrow; it was Saturday, and—
"Fox-hunt," cried Lawson.
"Yes; want to go? Meet me at the stables!" and it was arranged then and there.
The fox-hunt was sufficient, but Lawson's last waking thoughts were the professor's words, spoken carelessly that evening, "Frances hasn't missed a fox-hunt for years."
III
At seven o'clock Frances was warming her cold fingers over Susan's red-hot stove and making some show of drinking the coffee and eating the toasted roll the old darkey, with much grumbling, had gotten ready.